


The New Adventures of Supertemp

by athousandwinds



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen, post-journey's end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-26
Updated: 2010-01-26
Packaged: 2017-10-06 17:41:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athousandwinds/pseuds/athousandwinds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You're wonderful," he says. "You're special. You don't believe me, but it's true. You're Donna Noble."</p>
            </blockquote>





	The New Adventures of Supertemp

It's an ordinary Monday morning when Donna's eating her cornflakes (and checking her texts, because everyone's apparently gone _insane_) and her mother turns round and says,

"I love you."

So, obviously, Donna thinks she's nuts. Or worse, 'cause everyone's talking about aliens and maybe her mum's been replaced by pod people or something.

"What?" she says.

"I wish you wouldn't talk with your mouth full," Mum says, and the world goes back to normal.

\---

 

It's a couple of weeks later when she bumps into this man. He's wearing Converse with a brown suit – like some weird parody of Sherlock Holmes. Mostly he's a long streak of nothing, though. Like a weasel, but with a surprisingly nice smile.

Because he does smile when he sees her. It pisses her off.

"Oi! What're _you_ looking at?"

"Nothing." It's this wide, toothy grin and it's unnerving.

"Stop that!"

"Stop what?"

"Looking at me."

"I can't." For a moment, she sees his smile change – or not change, it doesn't change, but she sees the other side of it. It's so desperately, horribly sad that part of her wants to take a step back. She's never liked clowns.

"Are you all right?" she asks instead.

"Me? Oh, I'm fine. I'm always fine, me."

Right, she thinks, so he's a poor man's Bruce Forsyth. Well, isn't that just _brilliant_.

They stand there for a whole minute, just sort of staring at each other. Then she says,

"Well, go on, then."

"Oh! Right. Yeah. I just wanted to say – "

She's about to brush past him, she's in a hurry, she's got a job to go to. But something about him catches her attention and she pauses. She's being indecisive. She's never been indecisive in her life.

"I just wanted to say – " He's faltering again.

"I haven't got all day, you know."

"You're wonderful," he says. "You're special. You don't believe me, but it's true. You're Donna Noble."

She's so dumbfounded that she can't think of anything to say, opening and closing her mouth like a bloody goldfish. He smiles again and turns on his heel and runs away. By the time she's got her breath back, she's ready to yell things like _who the hell are you and what do you know about me?_ and _are you a bloody stalker_ and _I was a temp for the police once, you know, they'll be on my side_.

But he's gone, like he was never there, and she hasn't the heart for it. Later, ensconced in a warm armchair at home, Donna grins into the cushion like an idiot.

\---

 

"That Patrick Moore's written a new book," Granddad says. "If you get a minute on your lunch break, sweetheart – "

"Of course," says Donna.

She goes out to Waterstones and treats herself to a coffee while she's there. Temping at Amnesty International isn't too bad. You get to feel like you're really doing something to help.

Something special.

She finds the book pretty easily, they've got it on display. Then she wanders around, looking for the counter and casting an eye over some of the shiny new romance novels they've got in. It's a complete impulse buy, and she thinks she'll probably regret it later, but she swipes _Death in the Clouds_ off a shelf as she talks to the shop assistant.

She's annoyed with herself the entire way home; she knows she probably won't even read it. Bloody typical.

She does read it, in the end.

"I can't believe I paid six-ninety-nine to get déjà-vu," she complains to Granddad, who's happily reading Patrick Moore by torchlight, up on the hill. It's bad for his eyes, they've both told him, but he's still up there every night.

"Them Agatha Christie novels, they're all the same," he says, but Donna can't shake the feeling that for the only time in her life, there's something he's not telling her. In the morning she goes to the library and gets her first card. She reads all the Agatha Christies they've got. It's an obscure sort of revenge.

\---

 

Her time at Amnesty's winding down. The employee she's temping for is coming back off sick leave; she's just about ready to pack up her desk. Staplers everywhere beware.

On her last day of work, Donna leaves the building without an umbrella and the heavens are opening. Not literally, obviously, but it's hammering down with rain and she makes a dash for it to the station with her folder over her head.

She gets under a bus shelter and straightens up, breathing hard. She wipes the rain out of her face and eyes and stops.

That _man_ is there.

She blinks and then he's gone. She's _really_ annoyed now.

Donna resolves to phone the police that night. Right after she calls the travel agency. She needs a holiday. Somewhere warm. Somewhere she's not been before.

Somewhere exciting.

\---

 

The woman across from her is blonde and pretty, with eyelashes Donna would kill for. And, all right, the blonde part owes more to L'Oreal Couleur than to nature, but Donna doesn't judge. She smiles a lot, but it's Carnaval. Everyone's smiling a lot.

"You wouldn't _believe_ the amount it cost extra to come here while the Carnaval's on," Donna says and the woman looks sympathetic. "The price _doubled_, just like that! I told them at the travel agency, if you don't give me a discount after I worked myself to the bone for you for six bloody months, I'll sue."

"And did they?"

"Yes, they did." Donna grins at the woman and the woman grins back. It's a kind of camaraderie; Donna doesn't know where it comes from, but they've got it.

Donna's seen the white band of skin on the woman's ring finger. A few drinks into the afternoon and she asks about it, offering up her own story in exchange.

"Scumbag ran off after the wedding," she says, staring into her glass. The wine glows crimson in the sun, warm and seductive. "Left a note talking about this amazing woman he'd met."

"Maybe she was a black widow," the other woman says sympathetically. "Should've stuck with you."

"People get stuck with me a lot," Donna says, and suddenly she can feel all that wine in her head, weighing her down. "Had to move back in with my mum."

"I'm not stuck with you," the woman says. "I'm here because I like you." She raises her own glass. Donna clinks it. "To you, Donna."

It shouldn't make Donna feel better, but it does. "What about you?" she asks a few moments later.

"I married the wrong man," the woman says. "I was travelling with someone for a while and then…"

"You fell in love with him?"

"I suppose, thinking about it. Only he was _old_." She makes a funny face. "He doesn't seem so old now, of course."

Donna watches her brushing her hair out of her eyes and puts her hand out, the way she would for Natalie in a tizz. The woman squeezes her hand.

"I married someone who I fancied and who reminded me of him. I wasn't the smartest twenty year-old around."

She sighs and Donna lifts up her glass again. "To Jo," she says. Jo laughs.

"Well, I've still got the Amazon."

\---

 

Back in London – back in bloody Chiswick – Donna's life feels just a little bit flat. She's been in the big city, working for financial giants (all right, not working very well for financial giants, but it counts). She's seen the Sphinx. She's seen the pyramids. She's been in the Amazon Rainforest (Jo insisted on a fortnight's jaunt up country to meet her expedition team). Somehow, the Seven Wonders of Devonshire Road just aren't doing it for her any more.

One day, she comes down for breakfast and Granddad's reading the paper. He says,

"Donna, look at this."

There's a job ad for Amnesty International that he's circled in red.

"It says you'd get to travel," he says. "You'd like that, wouldn't you, sweetheart?"

"Yeah," she says, and stares at it.

"You could get that, easy," Mum says, and Donna drops the paper and gazes up at her in complete astonishment. "I don't know what you're looking at me like that for," she adds snappishly. "They liked you when you were there. And you're my daughter, you're qualified."

Donna's not quite sure what's happening in the world today; maybe it's spinning off its axis or something that Granddad would like. But she really bloody likes it, thank you very much.

She gets the job.

\---

 

Amnesty's a nice place to work. Not much in the way of cash, mind you, but it's a sight better than some. And Jo rang her up the other evening, saying that Donna should come and visit her in Antarctica when she got the chance. And Mum's a lot easier to get along with now that she's out of the house more.

Donna only sees that man once more. He's standing outside her office building, in the rain again, and it's dripping down his nose. It makes her laugh and she doesn't know why, because he's a _creepy stalker_ who says _weird things_ and if he comes near her again she'll call the police.

Finally, _finally_, she gets a chance to say this. And he laughs. He bloody _laughs_.

"Donna Noble," he says, still laughing. "Good for you, Donna. Good for you."

It takes the wind out of her sails a bit. The only thing she can do is give him a hearty slap, so she does. He laughs harder, this sound of strange, unholy delight in her and the world around them.

"I don't even need to tell you to have a fantastic life, do I?" he asks.

"I've got it under control, thank you _very_ much," she says crossly.

"I know," he says, and his laughter dies down to a warm smile.

And that's it. That's the last time she sees him, forever. At least she got to tell him off. She tells Granddad about it when she gets in and Granddad just sighs and says,

"Good on you, sweetheart, telling him like that."

But he's pleased. And, curled up on the grass and looking at the bright beauty of the stars glimmering overhead, Donna is, too.

\---

 

The next time the aliens come, Donna's up on the hill, watching for them. She's even made a picnic basket.


End file.
